Gettysburg Licensed Battlefield Guide, and Vice President of the Center for Civil War Photography, Garry Adelman is speaking with a group from South Carolina at Fort Stevens in the District of Columbia. With Barry Martin and Tom Danninger, Garry created the CD, The Gettysburg Park Commission Photos: Then & Now. This view was taken in April, 2010.

Gettysburg Licensed Battlefield Guide Garry Adelman, along with colleagues Tom Danninger and Barry Martin, systematically located the camera positions of the 237 photographs included in the Annual Reports of the Gettysburg National Military Park Commission, 1893-1904. The trio arranged the photos into seventeen sections and present the images in a “then & now” format along with a history of the project and the Park Commission on their CD, The Gettysburg Park Commission Photos: Then & Now. We continue their series with a sampling from each of the seventeen sections.

The Gettysburg National Park Commission (GNPC) issued annual reports from its creation in 1893 until stewardship was transferred to the National Park Service in 1933. The reports, issued each November, covering that year through October, outlined the work of the GNPC for that year. Reports from 1893-1904 were bound into one volume with the photographs that accompanied each report (a practice started with the 1895 report) printed en masse after the text. Together, these images provide a comprehensive view of the battlefield and the Commission’s work available nowhere else. Comparing the images to the same sites today speaks to the important issues of preservation, commercialization, monumentation, and the growth of the GNMP. It’s also simply “cool” to look at then & now photos!

View #13: Slocum Ave at 66th Ohio monument. This view was taken facing southeast in 1897.

Slocum Ave has changed so much that without monuments the old route would be almost impossible to decipher. This view was taken a few yards below the summit on the east side. This modern view of the previous photograph was taken facing southeast in 2003.

View #15: Kinzie’s Battery L, 5th United States, Culp’s Hill. This view was taken facing south in 1899.

The path of Slocum Ave was altered years ago to it’s current “loop”. The cannon on the left was repositioned to accommodate the new route. The observation tower sits just out of view a few feet to the right. This modern view of the previous photograph was taken facing south in 2005.